Living in the Shadow of a DX10 Mushroom Cloud

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I’m just glad I can finally talk about this without breaking an NDA or eight.

Massive have launched their open beta of their Cold War RTS, World in Conflict. I was playing in the closed beta, and biting my tongue to avoid just lobbing an enormous essay up on my blog about why I think it’s perhaps potentially the most interesting RTS of the year. I suspect I’ll end up riffing on the game for the rest of the year, assuming it holds together. Which is always a big “assuming” to make, but let’s try being optimistic for once.

With any luck, this will be to Massive’s previous Ground Control games, what Battlefield 1942 was to Codename: Eagle. That is, a game that takes relatively obscure source material and manages to bring it to an enormous audience. I can’t see why not. The WW3 setting is criminally under-used (And, as an aside, when it has been used it’s lead to some fascinating games – cross reference the definitive Soldier Sim, Flashpoint: Cold War Conflict). Massive have always believed in RTS which are inspired as much by team deathmatch games as the traditional lineage – so we have short games, no-real economics and close-teamwork. It’s different enough to be interesting but based on mechanics so simple that I suspect I’ll even be able to get Walker to play a game or two.

Highlight so far: Sweeping my tanks into the irradiated zones immediately after a nuke’s hit, which is about as apocalyptic as gaming has got this year. The little fluffy mushroom cloud slowly fading as my tank treads crush the scorched remains…